The apparatus of this invention is one for cleaning debris from the work supporting bed of a sheet material cutting machine wherein such bed is comprised of a plurality of generally vertically extending bristles the free ends of which define the work material supporting surface, so that the bed may be penetrated by a reciprocating knife or similar cutting tool used to cut the sheet material and so that air may pass through the bed either downwardly relative to the upper free ends of the bristles to create a vacuum pressure at the support surface or upwardly relative to the upper free ends of the bristles to create a positive pressure adjacent the support surface. A typical bristle bed of the type with which the cleaner of this invention may be used is shown by U.S. Pat. No. 4,205,835 in which case the bristle bed is comprised of a number of bristle units or squares made of injection molded plastic with each unit having a lower base and a plurality of densely spaced bristles extending vertically upwardly from the base.
It is known that in the use of cutting machines having bristle beds such as shown by U.S. Pat. No. 4,205,835 cutting debris tends to collect between the bristles of the bed and should be periodically removed to maintain efficient performance of the machine. Apparatus for cleaning bristle beds of the above described kind are already known wherein individual bristle units or groups of bristle units are cleaned by applying sharp impact forces to the bristle units to shake the accumulated debris from the bristles. One such apparatus is shown by U.S. Pat. No. 4,224,711. This type of cleaner, however, has the disadvantage that to achieve cleaning of the bristle bed the bristle units making up the bed have to be individually separated from the bed and cutting machine, cleaned by the cleaning apparatus remote from the machine, and then reassembled with the machine after having been cleaned; and this requires a great amount of time and labor.
The general object of this invention is therefore to provide a cleaner capable of cleaning the bristle bed of a cutting machine while the bristle bed, or the bristle units making up such bed, remain in place on the cutting machine, thereby avoiding the need for disassembling the bed from the machine for the cleaning operation.
A further object of the invention is to provide a bristle bed cleaner of the aforementioned character which can be made as a relatively small, lightweight and inexpensive unit.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a bristle bed cleaner of the above character which can perform its cleaning operation essentially automatically without significant human attention and which can, if desired, be used to clean a bristle bed during the night or other times when the cutting machine is normally out of use, or can be used during normal cutting operations.
Further objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the invention and from the accompanying drawings and claims.